Maths in 2015 - Schoolzone · Revision 1 KS3 2 Assessment 2 Progress 8 2 6th form maths 2 Participants’ GCSE maths profiles 3 New specifications 4 ... Maths in 2015: Summary | 1

Maths in 2015 Report of a discussion with heads of maths

Philip Collie and Melissa Mackinlay

01242 262906 [email protected]

Schoolzone Educational intelligence

CONTENTS

Maths in 2015: Summary 1

Discussion with heads of maths – 7 October 2015 1

Awarding body choice 1

GCSE maths delivery 1

Resourcing the new GCSE 1

Revision 1

KS3 2

Assessment 2

Progress 8 2

6th form maths 2

Participants’ GCSE maths profiles 3

New specifications 4

Awarding body choice 4

Awarding body associations 5

Teaching the new GCSE 7

GCSE maths delivery 7

Resourcing the new GCSE 8

Revision 11

Impact on KS3 12

Assessment and accountability 14

Assessment 14

Maths in Progress 8 15

Post 16 maths 18

Maths in 2015 – Maths in 2015: Summary | 1


Maths in 2015: Summary

Discussion with heads of maths – 7 October 2015

Awarding body choice

Maths departments are not sticking with previous

awarding bodies necessarily, having generally looked

around at the various specifications on offer. They have

not all even necessarily settled on a particular awarding

body despite having already started teaching the new

GCSE.

Major uncertainties seem to define current thinking

about GCSE, as schools have not yet seen real exam

papers and tend to distrust specimens. Some say they

will not settle on a particular awarding body until they

have seen the cohort through the first round of exams.

AQA seems to be gaining ground in maths, as its some

papers seem to be more accessible, simple and up-to-

date. Its provision of alternative to year and three year

schemes of work also seems popular and, among these

HoDs, there is a feeling that AQA offers excellent

support.

GCSE maths delivery

In the modular exam system, maths departments

commonly used the option of multiple entries by

starting GCSE in Y9, while the new KS3 could be seen to

encourage five-year courses. Half of these schools are

now using the “intended” two-year option while the

others use either three-year or five-year courses. The

reduction of supplementary maths GCSEs, such as

statistics is also leading to changes in the KS3-4 split.

Maths departments do not seem to have been given

additional teaching time or budget to introduce the

new GCSE and have contrived a range of different

options for meeting the additional demands of the new

GCSE. HoDs seem quite phlegmatic about this and are

uncomplaining, suggesting that they are either content

that they need little extra time or that it’s too soon to

tell whether this is the case.

Resourcing the new GCSE

While few of these departments have bought new

textbooks, it does not appear to be because they do not

want them, but because they either have no budget or

because they need to know more about the new exams.

Given that some say they will not settle to a new

specifications until the first exams have been taken and

that they prefer textbooks that have been endorsed by

the chosen awarding body, it may be that they do not

choose a new textbook for another two years or more.

While the content of maths is very similar, different

awarding bodies may examine in different ways and for

this reason maths teachers prefer texts to be endorsed.

This partly explains a delay in purchasing new texts:

HoDs need to feel settled about the new specs before

purchasing and they won’t be settled until they’ve

experienced the new exams first hand. Budgets are also

a concern.

Revision

When it comes to purchasing revision resources, heads

of maths prefer those that include hints, exam tips and

graded questions over awarding body endorsement.

However they do not seem to anticipate major

Maths in 2015 – Maths in 2015: Summary | 2


purchases in this area with students attending to buy

their own. Revision seems to be seen largely as an

ongoing remediation activity targeted at particular

groups of students, though there is still time set-aside

at the end of the course for revision purposes.

KS3

There is some indication that key stage three is even

more now seen as preparation for GC SE, since it seems

to have lost its identity somewhat in the revision. This

is exacerbated by the lack of any common assessment

framework. While there is some interest in the mastery

approach it has not yet gained purchase among these

heads of maths.

Assessment

Assessment throughout KS3 and KS4 seems to have

taken rather a retrograde step in that maths

departments seem to be largely setting effectively

mock exams and using percentages and rankings.

Some teachers feel liberated by the removal of levels at

KS3, however a high degree of uncertainty prevails,

especially since the “levelness” of the new GCSE grade

system is not yet understood. It is this uncertainty that

is causing stagnation in developing assessment

systems to meet the needs of Progress 8 and the new

KS3 curriculum.

Progress 8

The new P8 measure has not yet left to any major

initiatives in any of these maths departments. HoDs say

that they and their colleagues feel under additional

pressure as a result of the double weighting, but they

remain focused on achieving the best grades they can

for the students. It does though seem to compound the

demand for a reliable assessment and monitoring

system throughout KS3 and KS4.

P8 does seem to have led to the reduction in offerings

of some supplementary maths courses already, largely

to free up curriculum time for other P8 subjects rather

than because of the effect of these supplementary

maths courses.

6th form maths

At this stage heads of maths seem quite unconcerned

about the new A-level maths courses; they seem to

think that they will not be very different from current

ones and they intend to carry on offering AS maths co-

taught with a level as has been the case for many years.

There is clearly a feeling that they need to come to

terms with the new GCSEs before worrying about the

new A-levels. However there is some concern for the

students currently in Y10 who are currently facing two

years of uncertainty to be followed by another two.

The new core maths has not found purchase in any of

these schools and it is seen negatively as a possible

replacement for AS maths, which departments do not

want to give up. Maths is already the most popular

subject and sixth forms and it may be that the core

maths qualification has arrived too late to be useful.

Maths in 2015 - Chapter two| 3


Participants’ GCSE maths profiles

Chris: Has noticed a drop in performance since modular

GCSE maths was scrapped: caused mainly by the loss of

multiple entry. Level 2 certificates are used in his

department for ”those who love maths”, mainly to help

with retention in the face of strong completion from the

local 6th form college. He has some timetabling

problems with offering GCSE statistics in a department

that is already offering additional maths.

Dawn: Girls grammar. The department has not chosen

a spec for Y10, but the head requires this by end of this

autumn term. All current Y11 students are entered for

higher tier Edexcel. 50% of them also take additional

maths, but the department is not offering this to the

current Y10 – largely down to increase in demand on

curriculum from other subjects. They will decide which

awarding body to choose mainly by looking at SAMs,

probably following trials with the current Y11, and

following more research into what each awarding body

offers in the way of supporting resources and training.

Eddy: 63 different languages are spoken at this school;

very low reading ages and the school in a very deprived

area. There has been a general decrease in performance

in GCSE maths in recent years so the school has

adopted a different strategy: this year’s Y11 being

entered with Edexcel (bottom two sets) or AQA (top

three sets). All students also do statistics and a few do

further maths GCSE. 5.5 hours of maths timetabled per

week.

Marnie: small, “very middle class” 11-16 village school.

Y11 currently does Edexcel but Marnie is “losing faith” –

having had previous experience with AQA in another

school, she is moving her department to them. She

values the support and resources provided by AQA,

mentioning the provision of free webinars, assessments

being already available, flexibility in schemes of work

(especially the options of two- or three-year courses,

and the clarity of information available. Previously all

students have also taken GCSE statistics but this year,

as a result of the increased content of GCSE maths, only

the top sets are taking statistics.

Mary: comprehensive, good maths results. Until this

year, GCSE statistics was taught to all students, but this

has stopped for this year’s Y10 order to focus on GCSE

maths, owing to the uncertainties about the

examinations and performance measures. The

department is continuing with Edexcel but is probably

entering the current Y11 foundation tier students via

OCR. The main reason for sticking with Edexcel is

familiarity, even though Mary says that the support

offered by AQA is probably better.

Wayne: Small SEN school – 50% of students are

autistic spectrum. The department uses AQA for

entry-level certification, and a “reasonable proportion”

aim for Grade C at GCSE – for some, by the age of 19.

The department is still deciding about which AB to

choose at GCSE and for level 1. They bought in

textbooks for Edexcel GCSE maths, but this doesn’t

appear to incline them to follow that specification,

necessarily. Wayne is very interested in any exam

board that would offer online examination

Maths in 2015 - New specifications | 4


New specifications

Maths departments have considered the various specifications widely and have largely found one to work

towards, but there is a feeling that this could be a temporary measure because decisions may be remade after

real exams have been taken.

Despite the simultaneous review of all specifications, some departments are continuing with their previous

awarding body owing to familiarity with the systems. Others have been tempted to switch largely because of

benefits such as greater flexibility or perceived better levels of support, since spec content is more uniform.

There are signs that some maths GCSE subjects are likely to decline in number: statistics in particular seems to

be struggling to maintain its foothold under pressure from P8 and the loss of module tests within a three year

GCSE.

Awarding body choice

Although all these heads of department have looked

extensively at different awarding bodies’ sample

materials and specifications, they still feel that they are

unsure about the extent and impact of the changes to

GCSE, and will remain so until the first round of formal

examinations have taken place in 2017. They feel as if

they are very much “flying blind”.

There is certainly an element of sticking with what they

know, but the reforms have led maths departments to

consider everything from scratch. It appears that there

may be a narrower range of supplementary maths

GCSE being offered, with several of the schools

dropping or reducing access to statistics, for example.

This may incline schools to switch AB to some extent,

since the benefits obtained by using the same AB across

different specifications would then be lost. Some

schools seem to be experimenting with using different

ABs for different ability groups, while others simply

haven’t made a choice yet, so there likely to be a high

degree of fluctuation in the first few years,



Awarding body associations

Heads of maths were asked about what kinds of

associations they had with each awarding body: they

have all recently re-examined the ABs maths offerings.

AQA – a strong positive is that the levels of literacy

required are not excessive, making AQA maths more

accessible. Some HoDs also said that they valued the

good levels of support offered.

Edexcel – some maths HoDs consider that both the

specifications and exam papers appear old-fashioned,

complicated, or wordy. One commented that the new

style is very similar to the previous versions, so teachers

felt familiar with it. The new Edexcel sample

assessment materials suggest that the papers will be

more difficult than for AQA, which has put some

schools off – several HoDs agreed.



WJEC and OCR – there was less familiarity with these ABs among this group.

Maths in 2015 - Teaching the new GCSE | 7


Teaching the new GCSE

While some schools are moving to, or have adopted a five year GCSE model, most seem to be sticking with a

two- or three-year approach, despite observations that KS3 has lost its character and is rather nebulous.

There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of additional time being made available to maths departments to support

the delivery of the increased content GCSEs, but they seem to be coping with the demand so far, though there

are concerns for the less able GCSE students. There are few concerns about any lack of maths specialists either.

The lack of clarity associated with assessment seems to dominate thinking, with some departments unwilling

to commit to substantial resource purchasing until there is better understanding of the new GCSE grades.

GCSE maths delivery

AQA has produced two-year and three-year route maps

to GCSE, which some of these participants have found

useful in planning their GCSE maths delivery. Chris, for

example, said that his school is following the three-year

route, although they effectively they use a five-year

model, with accompanying assessment scheme

(provided by the LA), using new GCSE grades

throughout.

Among these departments, maths seems to be

structured into either two, three or five year courses:

none start GCSE part way through Y9, which has been

a fairly common model in previous years. This may be a

reflection of the re-trenching to GCSE maths or of the

uncertainty surrounding new exams, as well as of the

removal of early entry options already in place.

The provision of additional GCSE statistics complicates

the three-year delivery mechanism somewhat, in some

schools: it’s easier to deliver it when a three-year course

is run for all students, but not when only some will

follow it.

The amount of time allocated to formal teaching of

maths in current Y10 varies from around 3.5 to 5.5 hours

per week, with some schools also providing additional

tutorial time, either throughout the year or to fill the

curriculum gap left when other provision has finished,

e.g. college applications. One HoD mentioned that

science was giving some of their time to maths to cope

with the additional maths content of science GCSEs,

but in general schools do not seem to have been given



any additional teaching time to allow for the extra

content in new maths GCSE specifications. It seems

likely that this will have a negative effect on the lower

ability range pupils, HoDs say.

“

The type of pupil who will be doing foundation are the ones I think we will run out of time for

”

Schools with sixth forms will still offer re-sits but these

do not seem to be particularly high priority for schools

– there seems to be little interest in specific resources

for them and these HoDs had little to say on the subject.

It seems that much the same approach will pertain as in

previous years, as far as GCSE delivery is concerned,

with no immediate, dramatic changes, as departments

take tentative steps in the uncertain environment that

prevails.

Only Mary mentioned a shortage of maths specialists in

any of these departments – she has five specialists out

of eight – two are only deployed at KS3, the other only

takes bottom sets at GCSE – being strong on discipline.

The department has a relatively high teaching time

allowance, perhaps to reflect the shortage of specialist

teaching.

Resourcing the new GCSE

Marnie’s department has previously found that digital

textbooks have been successful in supporting GCSE

statistics, and the department is moving over to this

format for maths GCSE from this year. She said that it’s

easier to spread the financial burden with this format

and it works well alongside their existing practices for

setting online homework and access to a maths

website. However, she was adamant that it is still too

soon to be able to settle on any particular resources

because of uncertainties surrounding the new GCSE.

Chris was in a similarly uncertain position.

“Text books are safety nets” as one HoD put it, but

when so much remains unclear, it’s very difficult for

schools to put their trust in them.



“

Nothing seems very solid at the minute. I’m going to hold on to my budget until we know what kind of animal we are looking at

”

This feeling came across several times during the

discussion of GCSEs. The panel had been convened

specifically because there was a feeling among

Schoolzone clients that the market seemed rather

opaque and it seems that this is also the case from

schools’ point of view. The lack of certainty is much

more acute than following previous GCSE reforms

because of the concomitant removal of a KS3

assessment framework (with no alternative), the

pressure and uncertainty (given that it’s based on new

assessment criteria) of P8 and the forthcoming review

of A-level maths, which will extend the period of

uncertainty.

Dawn has been told that there is no budget for new

textbooks because “maths is maths”, however she

would value a new textbook largely in order to give an

indication of what the new exam questions will look like

– particularly in terms of style and difficulty, and for this

reason would prefer one which was endorsed by an

exam board.

Mary’s department has bought a couple of sets of

MyMaths texts for classroom use (citing budget

constraints as an explanation for why students don’t

have their own copies), but is mainly using digital

resources for better access. She commented, however,

that using the textbooks has changed their teaching

style because they see that the students do not have

the skills to answer the new “wordy” style of questions

that are illustrated in the books. She admitted, though,

that did not really know how accurate a representation

these questions were.

“

We use textbooks all the time because projecting (digital resources) is difficult and not so useful for differentiation unless you fall back on photocopying

”



Eddy’s department has bought endorsed textbooks –

he also has the view that maths is maths, but comments

that different awarding bodies will assess maths

differently, and commented that the attraction of

textbooks was largely the exam preparation aspect:

helping teachers and students to understand the exam

requirements. He thought the Collins books had good

coverage and were appropriately sized.

Given several comments that textbooks are useful for

exam preparation, in the current environment of

uncertainty, it’s perhaps unsurprising that most of

these HoDs thought that endorsement was important,

though clearly other factors are in play. It’s possible that

the attraction of endorsement will diminish with

greater familiarity with (real) exams, though exam prep

clearly isn’t the only factor involved in choosing

resources.

Press coverage in recent years has suggested that

Ofsted took a dim view of text book use, but then had,

perhaps, reversed their views on this matter. However,

participants generally agreed that Ofsted comments

had no influence over their decisions about whether to

use textbooks or not.

Training can be used to address major changes to

specifications as an alternative to buying in new



resources and there can be competition for budgets as

a result. However, there seems to be little competition

for maths departments’ CPD and resource budgets as

they are generally allocated separately.

Maths hubs and teaching schools do not seem to have

impacted on CPD provision in any of the schools.

In general the use of free maths resources dominates

over paid for resources, owing to budgetary restrictions

and while some of these departments have bought new

textbooks to support the new CGSEs, most seem to

relying heavily on free ones. A common balance of use

was 80% free: 20% paid for.

Revision

Before modular exams were introduced, a typical

model for revision was that schools would finish the

course early and then spend the last few weeks revising

as a whole class activity. It might be expected that

schools would have returned to this since the modular

exams were scrapped, but the most common approach

among these schools is that revision continues to be

integrated throughout the course and is often seen as a

remedial intervention activity, with specific students

being targeted via regular review meetings in some

schools. There is a prevalence of out-of-lesson activity.

Strategies described:

Marnie: small targeted revision groups in school time

and after and weekends/holidays sometimes

Wayne: intervention club at lunchtime and after school

from October open to all GCSE students Offer extra

sessions in holiday time if wanted. We are expected to

track pupil premium, and CLA students in particular

Eddy: after school classes and half term revision. Lots

of intervention

Chris: Fairly frequent revisiting in class (at start or end

of a lesson, sometimes the main part of the lesson leads

on from it, sometimes not. After school sessions. (If

allowed) one of maths days.



Mary: Ongoing after school revision (poor turn out

though!). A few revision lessons each half term but 6

weeks at the end of the course. Some targeted revision

in form time.

Dawn: hopefully the course will finish early and then we

can revise fully in class. Revision also takes place

throughout the year. We will put revision sessions on

around Easter and in study leave.

None of these maths departments have bought revision

materials for use throughout the course, perhaps

reflecting the diverse range of activities within each

school. Where resources are needed, HoDs tend to say

that they will buy them in Y11 or nearer the final exams.

While there was general preference for textbooks to be

endorsed, heads of maths seem to place greater

importance on exam prep within revision materials:

exam hints and graded questions seem to be more

important than endorsement, though clearly the exam

prep needs to be appropriate. This difference perhaps

suggests that teachers tend to relate endorsement to

content rather than skills.

Students in all these schools tend to buy their own

revision guides, though Chris’s school sells them on to

students and then offers to buy them back again.

Impact on KS3

Discussion about this key stage was focused on its use

in preparation for GCSE and the impact of GCSE

reforms upon it.

Dawn’s department is seeing GCSE as a five-year

course, as KS3 is simply a preparation for GCSE and

there is very little to distinguish KS3 as a separate entity

since there is no formal assessment. There seemed to

be some agreement with this view, though only two

HoDs said that they were adopting the five-year

approach to GCSE.

Marnie mentioned that AQA are promoting maths

mastery: she is quite interested in finding out more

about this for key stage three, as it would encourage

development of problem solving techniques. Mary’s

department is following a similar approach to mastery,

partly to move away from the notion of levels – life

without levels is liberating.

For others, mastery approaches didn’t seem

particularly interesting or new: other maths leaders

have told us that it’s really only a repackaging of what

already goes on in departments across the country,

especially those which have focused on problem solving

in recent years.



“

Life without levels is liberating, but where it gets complicated is when you try to track progress in a unified approach

”

It seems to be too soon to tell whether the revised KS2

curriculum will prepare children any better for KS3

maths. Marnie mentioned that there is already a very

wide difference in preparedness among students

coming up from different primary schools.

“

It’s a very dark space at the moment, and talking to our feeder primaries, they feel the same

”

“

Our KS3 is really a bit of a bodged together thing to prepare them for the new GCSE exams which we don’t even know what they will look like yet.

”

Maths in 2015 - Assessment and accountability | 14


Assessment and accountability

The new accountability measure’s focus on progress suggests that schools need to monitor it carefully

throughout secondary school, but so far this does not appear to be happening in maths departments.

NC levels are embedded in the culture and, with no viable alternative, schools are reluctant to leave them, at

least until the new GCSE grades are better understood, so that KS3 assessment can be aligned.

Maths departments seem to feel little direct pressure from P8: they still need to pursue the best grades they

can for all students; the biggest impact seems likely to be a reduction in choice of maths GCSE subjects.

Assessment

None of these participants felt that the department had

a good replacement for levels, with some returning to a

simple test and percentage score, approximate GCSE

level, or ranking system for students. Wayne

commented that schools have been using levels for 20

years so it’s not going to be easy to move away from

them immediately.

Mary’s school has moved to setting general tests for the

entire year group which has resulted in some students

not being able to demonstrate any attainment against

the new KS3 curriculum and they are having to modify

the curriculum to meet their needs. However, other

HoDs seemed to be of the view that this approach was

adequate to their needs and was generally simpler.

Chris mentioned that the new assessment system

provided by his LA, correlated old NC levels with new

GCSE grades and expressed progress in terms of the

new GCSE grades. He thinks that this system is very

complicated to implement and interpret.

Wayne laments the loss of intermediate level (as, later,

did Chris) and also feels that the new exams seemed to

offer the opportunity to stretch the upper end of the

ability range, but instead it appears simply to

disadvantage the lower, at least on the basis of current

experience: the foundation level seems very difficult.

Y6 students who achieved level 6 in their SATs do not

appear really to be at level 6, so strategies for adding

two/three levels of progress seem doomed to failure for

these students, Wayne said.

None of the participants felt that they had developed

any viable alternative to levels. As with the new GCSEs,

there remains a high degree of uncertainty surrounding

assessment: the liberation from levels might be

welcome, but there is certainly a feeling that no-one

really knows how well anyone is doing in maths at the

moment, beyond internal comparisons, which are

based on uncertain assessments.

A major difficulty to developing an alternative to levels

is the uncertainty associated with the new GCSE

grades. Heads of maths cannot see how these will be

awarded or know how that would translate to formative

assessments at this stage. They look forward to

developing a better understanding of the new exams,

which needs to be based on putting students through

real exams (not simply looking at specimen papers) and

then being able to work backwards to develop reliable

assessment regimes for KS3 and 4.

Wayne said that the main demand for assessment

materials is for those that would help students to see

what they were aiming for in the formal assessment, i.e.

realistic specimen assessments. Mary added that these

would be really useful if they were structured to support

diagnosis of skills associated with the main three types

of question: recall, use & apply and problem-solving.



Maths in Progress 8

Heads of maths are aware of the P8 measure and

generally seem confident that they understand the

system. In some schools, much has been made of the

new measures, with both teachers and students being

made aware of it via assemblies and INSET. Others are

learning about it as a result of management pressure.

The double weighting of maths in P8 suggests that this

subject would feel the effect of the introduction of the

new measure than perhaps other included subjects

(other than English) would. This could be positive,

elevating the importance of maths in the curriculum, as

well as negative, increasing the importance of student

progress in maths.

Dawn said there is an advantage in that senior leaders

are more likely to listen to heads of maths who say that

additional interventions are needed, but that it also

creates some additional demands. There was general

agreement that P8 increased the influence of the maths

department, but also increased pressure on maths

teachers: in most of the schools represented, maths is a

net contributor to whole school performance.

“

I feel that I’m getting more pressure from my headteacher than I have done in recent years

”



“

I think it’s great for the students but we now have two try to intervene at every single grade boundary… there is only a certain amount of time – and money – available

”

One of the DfE’s intentions in moving to the P8

measure was to persuade teachers to broaden their

attention away from the C/D borderline and there are

indications from HoDs that this is likely to happen. One

gave the example that, for example a previous G

student would maybe have been left, but now they

might be supported towards an F. It seems likely that

it’s at the lower end of attainment where this is likely to

be felt, especially as these students lose out more as a

result of other aspects of the reforms.

All teachers thought that P8 increased the pressure on

maths teachers, but would not impact on maths’

already high status and – importantly, will not result in

increased maths budgets.

In general, P8 has not yet had much impact – expected

progress is still more important and teachers

understandably still focus their attention on getting the

best grades for their students. This is not enhanced by

the implementation of the P8 strategy. However, Dawn

mentioned that P8 has a very high profile in her

grammar school, where possibly the leadership is

nervous that while the school would have performed

well in attainment, it may do less well in progress

measures.



The implementation of P8 suggests that schools will

pay more attention to monitoring progress throughout

KS3 and 4, since the floor standard requires that schools

add value to the predicted progress and since students

of all abilities (apart from those restricted by the top

grade ceiling, perhaps) can contribute equally to

progress measures. However, as yet, there is little

evidence of a unified approach to assessment

throughout both KS3 and 4 to support monitoring

progress to support P8 – Marnie again pointed out that

it’s still too soon to know what would be reliable so is

not in a position to adopt any new assessment system.

“

until we’ve got concrete grade boundaries - which will probably change again next year until they’ve got them settled

”

Dawn said that they assess in the same way at KS3 and

4 – via standard tests which give a percentage, that they

then “make up a grade to go with it and send that

home”, so although they are using the same system, it’s

by no means reliable as a measure of progress.

However, this percentage-based approach seems to be

approximately equivalent to the thinking behind the

new GCSE exams, some HoDs thought, so there is some

justification for using it, other than simplicity.

Wayne commented that despite the plethora of

different assessment systems that had been used in

recent years, the grade obtained via written exam at

the end of the course is the final measure used, and so

the pressure is on to monitor progress against that,

suggesting that really the best way to monitor progress

is via, effectively, a series of mock exams.

Of all the recent reforms, P8 seems to have had least

impact in maths departments: little so far has changed

in the way anything is done. Dawn doesn’t think it ever

will: attainment is still the main focus she says in her

(grammar) school. As others mentioned: schools

predominantly want to do best by their students. Chris

said that P8 has to be at the back of the mind, but you

need to keep the focus on getting the grades.

“

If you can manage [to keep a focus on the grades] it should take care of your share of the progress eight

”

Marnie commented that her senior leadership team

keep on mentioning P8 to keep the pressure on staff.

She also said that their focus on P8 had meant that it

was very difficult to persuade them to allow the

department to continue offering additional stats to

some students. She sounded quite exasperated by the

attention it was getting – it might be down to imminent

Ofsted inspection, she thought.

Mary noted again that focused intervention is now

targeted at all grade boundaries, rather than C/D, but

that’s the only difference really.

If P8 has this little impact on maths, it seems unlikely

to have much direct impact on any of the P8 subjects,

other than to restrict option choices – as indeed it

seems to be doing in maths already

Maths in 2015 - Post 16 maths | 18


Post 16 maths

Core maths has found no foothold in any of these schools; rather it can be seen as a threat to AS maths.

Departments envisage no real changes to their familiar offerings of AS in Y12 co-taught with A-level.

Heads of maths seem relatively unconcerned with the reform of A-level maths content as yet: the main issue

seems to be that there will be more uncertainty and that it will hit the same group of students who will have

just worked their way through brand new GCSE.

None of these schools had adopted core maths –

several were quite emphatic that would not and were

generally disinterested in it. Only Mary’s said she’d like

to introduce core maths – she likes the content – but

doesn’t have the staff to deliver it. Eddy liked the sound

of it for Grade C GCSE students but again can’t staff it.

Chris hopes that it doesn’t attract any attention at his

school because he sees it as a threat to AS-level, given

that they too can’t staff it as an additional offering.

“

I hope core maths slips under the radar

”

Regarding the imminent reform of A-level maths, Dawn

and Mary expressed concern for the current Y10

students who had to face a more difficult GCSE, with

teaching being delivered among a great deal of

uncertainty and lack of confidence, and who when then

go on to face exactly the same situation at A-level.

At present the uncertainty about the new A-level seems

to inhibit serious consideration. There seems to be

awareness that the course will be generally more

difficult, probably down to the style of exam questions

more than the content. This might engender some

different pedagogies or skills foci, but again the maths

is maths view suggests that the changes will not present

a major challenge to departments. Wayne (an A-level

examiner) considered that the changes will probably be

so slight that new resources probably won’t be needed

in his department.

There was no concern that spending on new GCSEs

would impact on A-level spending: Chris said they’d had

no additional funding for GCSE – others generally

agreed. The common approach was that they would be

able to bid for extra funding if they found something

suitable; one department was putting cash aside for

this, in case they did need new resources for A-level.

All these maths departments are still co-teaching AS

maths as before this year – there is a general

assumption that they will carry on too, when the new A-

level is introduced.

The general feeling was that in three years’ time, A-

level maths offerings would largely be as they are now.

None anticipated changing awarding body for the new

A-levels, but it’s really too soon to say – especially given

that they have started new GCSEs without knowing

much about what the exams are like. They will compare

ABs widely though, rather than simply sticking with the

AB they are familiar with: at GCSE they have tended to

stick with their previous AB, not so much because they

are all similar as because they are equally unknown.

schoolzone, October 2015

Schoolzone

Formal House

60 St George’s Place

Cheltenham

GL50 3PN

01242 262906

[email protected]

Documents

Maths in 2015 - Schoolzone · Revision 1 KS3 2 Assessment 2 Progress 8 2 6th form maths 2 Participants’ GCSE maths profiles 3 New specifications 4 ... Maths in 2015: Summary | 1